Friday May 7th, 2010
A Thank You from Haiti
The photos of the recipient of the Dr. Samuel W. Siurua Memorial Violin at Haiti's Holy Trinity School of Music are shown below. Dr. Jean Montes with seven volunteers made the trip to Haiti the last week of March delivering 60 instruments to replace those lost in the earthquake of January, 2010. This was organized by Dr. Montes under the auspices of the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestra of which he is Artisitic Director. There were 15 instruments from Indianapolis including the violin finished by Benjamin Parrott in memory of Sam Siurua. Dr. Montes personally carried Sam's violin with him on the trip to Port Au Prince and presented it to the recipient, Guerlyn Esperance.
Guerlyn Esperance is the concertmistress of the orchestra and the leading Haitian violin teacher at the school where she began studies in the 3rd grade. She began teaching at the music school in 1990 and at times has carried up to 30 private violin students in weekly lessons. In addition to students and orchestral work Guerlyn leads a string quartet. She has been trained as a teacher in the Suzuki method attending programs in Florida and Washington. Her family is musical. Her sister who is now living in the U.S. is a cellist and she often starts her day to the sounds of her father and brother singing. She feels music has given her confidence and feels she is with family every day when she is teaching at Holy Trinity Music School. She appreciates the many volunteers who have come to Haiti and wishes many more people would come to see and experience the Haiti as she knows it and loves it for it is very different from how it is often portrayed.
Below Dr. Montes presents the biographical sketch of Dr. Siurua's life to Guerlyn.
Here Dr. Montes is opening the violin case before presenting it to Guerlyn.
Then Guerlyn unwraps the violin from the silk bag protecting it.
Next Guerlyn sees the lovely instrument.
Guerlyn at last plays the Dr. Samuel Siurua Memorial Violin.
Below is a scan of Guerlyn's personal thank you note to the donors.
"Merci beaucoup pour le violon je vais en prendre soin de tout caur
Merci
GE"
This translate roughly to the following:Thank you very much for the violin, I'll take very good care of everything, Thank you, GE
Below Dr. Montes in a personal letter offers his appreciation to all who have contributed to the Haitian Youth Music Relief Project. As he says, "Mesi Anpril"(Thank you very much!).
Finally, I would like to also express my great appreciation to the following persons/organizations who contributed either with cash donations or in-kind donations making the violin, bows and accessories in Dr Siurua's memory possible:
Donna Lively Clark
Diantha De Graw
Frank's Violins (Mark Kurkowski)
Charles Hewett
Indianapolis Violins (Ted Skreko and Chris Ulbricht)
Robert and Leslie Kenny
Mary (Joie) Kipka
Benjamin Parrott
Thank you all very much.
Yours,
Jerry Allen
